PoliceWoman

I was on a 7-player team that tried A South Side Story but we were unable to complete it. I think we were playing at level 20 (the leader was high level) so we encountered a lot of the custom Skulls; these guys look terrific but seem much too tough for a low level opponent. They hit very hard and debuff accuracy. We had two team wipes during mission 3 (once due to aggroing too many custom Skulls, once due to getting hit by an ambush of the custom Skulls while fighting something else). This plus the fact that the mission was Defeat All on a large map discouraged the team and we ended up abandoning the arc. Since we quit the arc, I don't think most of us rated it.

I joined the team and the arc mid-stream so wasn't really able to follow the story. I did not see any clues during the time I was there; perhaps a few of those would help.

Although I think the custom Skulls have terrific costuming, they just seemed too hard. Personally I'd suggest reducing the level range to top out at 14 so you can use the normal Skulls instead of custom ones; failing that, lowering the power level of the custom Skulls might be a good idea.

Hope that helps!

My personal opinion:

* You cannot make an arc that is perfectly balanced for every player or every team. On multiple arcs I've gotten feedback from players where one says it's too easy, and another says it's too hard. Striking a balance between these two is best; however, since "too easy" is mildly disappointing to the player while "too hard" may mean the player either ragequits or can't complete the arc at all, it's better to err on the side of "too easy".

* I used to review arcs on whatever difficulty my character happened to be set on at the time. Then my soft capped SR scrapper on +2 x8 difficulty started an arc with custom characters where every single one of them buffs or debuffs, and got stomped flat. My scrapper could handle +2 x8 difficulty just fine even against fairly difficult "standard" models like Arachnos and Cimeroran traitors, so I felt this custom group was clearly too difficult ... but I did not feel that I could say "Your mobs are too hard" with authority when I've purposely amped up my difficulty to the max. So I lowered my difficulty to the default and tried it again (and still felt they were too hard, but that's a nother story). Now I mostly run AE story arcs at default difficulty. However, I don't think you can expect all players to run your arc at the minimum difficulty.

* I do like putting AVs and EBs in story arcs, especially in the final mission, but I'll usually put allies in the same mission to help out if the AV is difficult. AVs and EBs should be used with restraint in low level arcs, however. I had to force myself to make the "big bad" of my level 5-10 arc only an ordinary Boss.

* Support powers are dangerous to players. Use them sparingly. I recommend either limiting them to lieutenant rank and above, or if you must give them to a minion, make sure no more than 1 out of 3 minions has them. I feel that custom enemy groups where every single enemy has a buff or debuff set are always unbalanced, and it is Not Fun for the player to watch the bad guys non-stop healing/buffing each other. Personally, I prefer to make custom minions only have an attack set and no defense set (well, Regen, which is very close to no effect at minion level).

* Control powers are kind of a tossup for me, though some people feel more strongly about them. Personally, I always carry break frees when I'm playing squishy characters, because I expect to get mez'd some. Some players are also enraged if enemies have mez protection; this has some justification as those powers tend to negate controllers and dominators.

Just my opinion. Hope that helps.

Awesome! Big congrats to Sister Twelve!

The Galactic Protectorate - 05 review
Arc ID: 304290
Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Save the World
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 40-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, custom power selections

The premise is to help an alternate reality version of Swan battle alien invaders and rescue one of her teammates. I played a 50 MA/SR scrapper on default difficulty.

[5.0] points to start with.

Mission 1
Briefing: a couple of paragraphs of catch up on the story, then the contact says she wants me to investigate "another hidden base" where the patrols look like the group that captured Mynx. She wants me to investigate it.

[-0.01] Writing: "You're becoming something of a legend over here! Every day since I've joined the Olivia Q Freedom Fighters" ... considering they have renamed their resistance movement after me, isn't "you're becoming something of a legend" a strange (and maybe self-evident) thing to say? (It also feels weird to have the resistance organization named after me, when most of the Freedom Phalanx and Vindicators is also in it, and they seem to be the leaders.)

Inside the mission there are enemies in the group "GP - Division 8" which appears to have sonic powers as their theme.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "soundwaves that are so tantalizing and spicy" ... describing sound as "spicy" seems very peculiar. (In Planetary Pyrodancer's description.)

[-0.1] Costuming: The various mobs really don't have costumes that seem consistent with the idea that they are alien invaders belonging to a military organization. For example, Starlight Songherder is dressed as a cowgirl; most of the other mobs look like they're dressed to go out clubbing.


Some call her the space cowgirl

[-0.5] Game balance: all the mobs have sonic debuffs and a large number of them seem to have buffs (thermal, sonic, cold) and heals (thermal, empathy). As a result this enemy group seems much too powerful; against a mid to large sized team, their stacked buffs and debuffs would be devastating. I'd recommend removing the buff/debuff sets from the minions, at the very least.

Found Computer 1, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: Consideration" that gives me some back story about why the Galactic Protectorate has invaded.

[-0.01] Difficult to believe: While I appreciate the attempt at explaining Cosmic Crewmaster's thugs powers, her background info about recruiting random criminals while singing in underground cabarets, then bringing them on military duty, seems extremely implausible to me.

Found Computer 7, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: 'Earth': Irregularities" as a clue.

Found Computer 5, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: 'Earth': Lord Cosmic" as a clue.

Found Computer 4, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: Enactment (3/3)" as a clue.

Found Computer 2, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: Enactment (1/3)" as a clue.

Found Computer 6, which gave me "Planetary Judgement "Earth": Occupation" as a clue.

[-0.1] Editing: although I like getting some background information from these clues, I feel that the 7 clues present here ought to be edited down to be a bit tighter. For example, you have 3 separate clues from different glowies explaining the legal basis for motioning for consideration of Planetary Judgement, and 2 separate clues explaining the reasoning for the number of divisions sent in the invading force. I think this could be explained more briefly while still effectively communicating the idea that "Galactics decided your civilization sucks and needed to be invaded for your own good."

Found Main Computer, which gave me "General Sonica's Log". Apparently General Sonica is a valley girl-sounding person who is miffed at having to cancel a concert appearance due to being given a military assignment.

Found and defeated Base Commander, who spent the whole fight singing song lyrics.


The Base Commander

[-0.5] Thematic issues: OK, I get that Division 8 is sonic themed, but I feel like their obsession with musical lyrics and concerts really conflicts with the idea of the Galactic Protectorate invading Earth and keeping the Human Resistance under its iron heel. I think you could make a very funny and entertaining "Spacegirls gone wild" story arc with some of the ideas here, but I don't feel like this really works together with the more serious theme of the alien conquest and occupation of Earth.

[3.77] at end of mission 1.


Mission 2
Briefing: the contact basically wants me to beat up more Division 8 personnel in hopes of learning something about where Mynx is.

[-0.01] Motivation: the motivation behind this mission seems rather weak; I just defeated a whole mission of Division 8 enemies, what makes us think defeating another mission full of Division 8 people will do any good? However, the send-off message does add some urgency to the mission which helps motivate this better, so I reduced this to only -0.01. I do think the briefing could benefit by moving some of the "Oh no! Psyche and Manticore got ambushed!" text into the briefing, rather than leaving it for the send-off message.

[-0.1] Inconsistent: Mission title is "Discover Mynx's location", but Swan actually said we're going to Steel Canyon in order to give Manticore and Sister Psyche some backup. Also, why don't we have an objective to rescue Manticore and/or Sister Psyche when we enter the mission? That's what we're here to do, after all.

[-0.1] Mission objectives: I have "Defeat Col. Dore, Defeat Col. Mifa, Defeat Col. Sola, Defeat Col. Tido" as mission objectives, but none of these names have been mentioned before this; Swan didn't tell me these names. So why do I know I need to fight them? I'd recommend reducing this to something like "4 alien commanders to defeat" or something.


I had to kick his butt after he said this.

Defeated Dore, Mifa. Rescued Swan and Ms. Liberty; the mission is so large that I leave them behind, though, since otherwise I'd have to clear every single mob on the large outdoor map.

Defeated Sola; while fighting her she says:

[NPC] Col. Sola: Hey, do you really want to start a fight with me? I'm alot stronger than I look!
[NPC] Col. Sola: Geez, you sure can take alot of punishment, huh? Most of my enemies would be ashes by now!

[-0.01] Typo: "alot" -> "a lot" (twice in Sola's dialog)

Found and defeated Tido which finished the mission. Tido spoke with an unusual number of ellipses in his dialog, but I thought maybe this was intended to depict his manner of speaking. Completing the mission gave me the "Strange Media Device" clue. This clue shows a countdown to General Sonica's concert.

I had thought Sonica's concert was canceled due to having to guard Mynx, but reviewing the dialog and clues, they only said it might be canceled. But it looks like the Show Must Go On.

Oddly, never found Sister Psyche or Manticore, who the contact said I was supposed to be providing backup for. Possibly the briefing should be rewritten to match what happens during the mission. (Already flagged this under "Inconsistent" so didn't mark off points again.)

[3.55] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: General Sonica has been forewarned of our attack, but rather than cancel the concert she's beefed up security. So the human resistance will be battling the concert security while I break in, rescue Mynx, and assassinate the general.

[-0.01] Typo: "eminate" -> "emanate" (in mission entry popup)

Searching the dance rave map I find General Sonica and battle her.


Right before the concert was officially canceled due to a terrorist threat

I kinda like that she has delaying the concert until she can get revenge on me for beating up her friends, but really, how was she going to hold a concert when the rest of her band isn't here? She gives me "General Sonica's Parting Words" as a clue, which seems to foreshadow a great disaster about to occur to the human resistance.

Found and rescued Mynx, finishing the mission.

[-0.1] Gameplay: This mission really seemed too simple, especially for the finale of the arc. The boss and the hostage were the only objectives that I found and the only ones with any dialog.

Debriefing: decent conclusion, then lays groundwork for the next story. I like the way the distress call(s) are presented. I normally would consider this a dangling plotline that isn't resolved, but it is intriguing enough that I thought it was positive.

[+0.1] Neat final debriefing.

[3.54] at end of mission 3.

Overall
The arc mostly followed the formula for Galactic Protectorate arcs thus far; structurally it was very similar to the others. I did like the very end, which seemed to lay groundwork for the final arc.

For this arc in particular, I felt there were game balance issues with Division 8; in my opinion, the mobs have way too many overlapping buffs and debuffs that would be devastating to the average team.

I'm afraid I also found the spacegirl rockers theme to be a little silly. This isn't inherently a problem, but it's sharply at odds with the more serious tone of the GP's occupation and brutal suppression of the human resistance. It felt to me that the space rock star concept would've been better served in an independent story that could be a comedy that focuses on that idea; it seemed like an awkward fit with the alien occupation and hero extermination story.

Anyway, rounding 3.54 up, I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

StyrofoamKing - one of Save the Villain #364597 (N1-54), Shadow of the Red Death #367071 (H5-40), Betrayal in Rome #369445 (N35-54)
@Gypsy Rose - Suppression #374481 (H5-10) (played, need to write up notes)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290 (N40-54)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54)
@Peregrine Falcon - The Hidden Hand #374410 (H30-54)
@GlaziusF - Malta Impossible #378274 (H46-50)
@MrCaptainMan - Storming Citadel #379488 (H5-10)

3/2/2010

Friday

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) did a Numina TF. I was one of the few players with stealth, so I got assigned to stealth missions. On the "Locate Scout" mission I had a heck of a time finding Scout; I had never realized before that there actually is no mob named Scout in this mission, it's just an anonymous war hulk that you're supposed to get. Otherwise the TF went fine, finishing in 1hr 7min.

Millie Volt (41 elec/elec brute) did an Imperious TF. For some reason I got 2 reward merits just for entering the last mission (in addition to the regular TF missions) but I have no idea why. We cleared most of the TF, finishing in 1hr 1min and getting Millie to level 42.


Saturday

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) joined an Imperious TF, about half speed players and half pickup. Finished in 34m 8s, which wasn't bad but got a "Geez this group is efficient" from one of the pickup players.

I restarted Linda Lightspeed as a rad/nrg blaster. With the idea that she's a light-based hero, I recolored all powers to brilliant white with a tinge of blue; I think this looks good on both the rad blasts and the energy pom-poms. Solo'd to level 3. A friend spotted me and invited me to a team, which turned out to be an 8-player team doing level 49 Praetorian missions in Peregrine Island. I tried to say I was too low level for that, but he said I should be fine. After one mission I had leveled to 6 and was feeling intense PLing guilt, so I told the team I should really go, because I wasn't high enough level to be helpful. They insisted that it was okay, and I should stay! So I ended up staying; I rationalized that I was the only damage AT on the team, so they needed my DPS. I took AoE powers when I trained up, to help kill stuff faster; Irradiate is great, but Electron Haze feels like an awfully narrow cone, so not sure I like it. We beat Black Swan, Mother Mayhem, Malaise, Infernal, Dominatrix, Marauder, Tyrant and Chimera. This got Linda to level 17 by the time the team broke up.

I played San Min (6 MA/will scrapper) on a 7-player Sisterhood team doing radio missions. Clearing an entire Skyway safeguard mission got San Min to level 13.

Some players of my Attack of the 50 Foot Villain AE mission had run into bugs where the triggered objectives to fight Goshilla and the giant Mecha wouldn't spawn correctly, preventing the mission from being completable. I spent hours and hours trying to debug this; changing maps, moving around and/or deleting objectives, etc. For some reason, triggered spawns on outdoor maps just seem buggy; it doesn't seem limited to any one particular map, but there does seem to be some correlation with outdoor maps. I need an outdoor map for this mission, though (it would be silly to be 50 feet tall and indoors). I tried a version where all objectives were spawned at the start of the mission and none were triggered, but this version felt like it lost any sense of plot that the mission originally had, so I couldn't live with that. I ended up making all the triggered objectives optional (so you can still complete the mission even if some don't spawn), making it a "defeat all" (which seems to only count the mobs that were spawned at the start), and using a smaller map so that defeating all of the mobs isn't so onerous. This seems to work okay so far, but I'll probably need to test it more to be sure, since these spawning problems are somewhat intermittent.

Testing heavily with Mega (50 SS/will brute) got me a lot of tickets; I burned some of these on 2 Gold ticket rolls at 3700 tickets each, getting a Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) and a Malaise's Illusions (chance for psi); haven't checked their price at the Black Market, mostly because I doubt they are worth much.


Sunday

Strong Woman (49 inv/SS tanker) joined a badging team that beat up Anti-matter and Neuron in a greyed out mission just for the Dimensional Warder credit.

A friend asked me to help fix some arena duels for the sake of badging credit. I brought on Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) and we met in Pocket D, taking turns forfeiting duels to give each other badges. This felt pretty cheaty, but it worked. I got the following badges:

Arena Duelist
Strawweight Champion
Flyweight Champion
Bantamweight Champion
Featherweight Champion
Lightweight Champion
Welterweight Champion
Middleweight Champion
Cruiserweight Champion
Heavyweight Champion
Suepr Heavyweight Champion

This gets my badge count up to 637.

In the afternoon there was some actual real PvP in Warburg. I ran over there with Police Woman. AR/dev is not exactly a PvP build, but it's what I'm used to playing. Most of the PvPing was just a big free-for-all furball on the beach near the Longbow ship. I scored a few kills against squishies, then had some inconclusive skirmishes against a regen scrapper. I couldn't actually out-DPS his regen, but he couldn't actually close to melee range with me (I would web grenade him, then bounce away to somewhere he couldn't reach). Since we couldn't kill each other, we teamed up! More people trickled into Warburg as time went on; a bunch of blasters (psy, sonic, even another AR), a couple slippery stalkers, a couple tankers and scrappers. An emp defender even showed up and joined us, which gave us a pretty unfair advantage but heal decay kept it from being too overpowering. Killed a lot of people, died a lot. I got a level 50 Panacea (HEAL/RCHG) recipe drop, which was really nice; Wentworth's has it selling for around 200M. I should probably sell it (it's fantastically unlikely for me to assemble a set of these) but I'll probably end up squirreling it away in my base or something.

I started a newbie MA/ninj stalker to attend the Kumate level 5 PvP event. The rules limited you to being a level 5 martial arts toon; I went with a level 5 MA stalker reasoning that having 3 attacks (Thunder Kick, Storm Kick, Crippling Axe Kick) would massively advantage me over a level 5 scrapper (who gets Cobra Strike instead of Crippling Axe Kick). Plus if they allowed Hide, that would just be ludicrously broken at level 5. PvP in Warburg had me running late on making and leveling up this character, so I held my nose and played an AE farm arc long enough to get to level 4, then ran to Pocket D for the event. Unfortunately, no one else showed up, so it got called off. I guess this is understandable, as it's kind of a pain to create and level up to 5 a character you use for only one event. Oh well!

A Rikti War Zone raid was starting at that time, so I brought on Millie Volt (42 elec/elec brute) to join, figuring that elec armor should be really good against Rikti (with capped energy resist and moderate lethal and psy resist). Despite that I got squished a few times (there's a LOT of Rikti there) but nevertheless got around 300 Vanguard merits, 2 reward merits from the Master at Arms, and about half a level of exp just from fighting.

When the leader called on us to jump into the well in the center of the mother ship, I said, "My god! It's full of stars!" Which made me suddenly realize that, wow, 2001 was awhile ago. This made me say on a chat channel, "It's weird that my science fiction had 2001 and 1999 as futuristic dates that we'd have space travel and stuff," which left me open to a joker cracking, "Or Prince songs!"

Millie went on from RWZ to join a 4 player villain team working on getting mayhem exploration badges. We did the Brickstown mayhem, Founders Falls mayhem and Peregrine Island mayhem missions, with some paper missions in between, that got Millie the various badges and level 43.


Monday

Quick Katie (42 plant/kin controller) did a clear-most Imperious TF organized on LB, finishing in 47m 56s and getting Katie to level 43. With the new slots I put 2 Blessing of the Zephyr in Superspeed (+3.13% range def), completed a set of 6 Gaussian's in Tactics (+2.5% all def) and a set of 6 Red Fortune in Maneuvers (+2.5% range def). This gives Quick Katie a total of 34.97% range DEF while hovering; still not close to the cap, but she definitely seems more survivable.

While playing Quick Katie on an ITF, someone was doom-saying on LB channel about how no one plays on Liberty any more and how there's no teams to be had. I pointed out that I had joined an 8-player team within 15 minutes of logging in, but he persisted, insisting that no one plays on Liberty. I had seen 3 or 4 TFs being formed in the background on LB during this time, though, so this just didn't seem justified. This ended up leading to the following exchange:

[LB]Doomy person: fact are the population of liberty in particular is rather moribund compared to even a month ago
[LB]Doomy person: 146 non hide blueside being 5th is not happy happy joy joy imho
[LB]PW: Sorry can't hear you over the sound of my team smashing stuff
[LB]Another person: Thanks, PW, for reminding me why you are awesome. heh

....which I thought was pretty fun. Thanks!

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) did a speed ITF in 22m 14s.

Linda Lightspeed (17 rad/nrg blaster) did a 6-player Synapse TF with Whirligig SG. This team was a little weird because it was all squishies (4 defenders, 2 blasters). I decided that I was the tanker, or at least a scrapper, and ended up rushing into mobs to attack them. Fortunately, the defenders were very good (I usually had fortitude and SB and debuffs on the bad guys) so this was pretty survivable. We beat Babbage (with one rad outside the team helping) and finished the TF in 1hr 52m, getting Linda to level 21.

After your reminder, I did end up submitting one of my arcs to CoHMR: Two Tickets to Westerly. Hope you'll like it.

Thanks for giving Two Tickets to Westerly a try!

It sounds like you all disliked the big boss's nickname. This seemed to be a common feeling, and I ended up changing this nickname sometime after y'all played it. Your voiced opinions help confirm that this was a good move.

I was a little confused by the comment that Marrowsnap is meant to be a big Skulls overlord or something; I never got that impression from the canon missions I played. Insofar as I can tell, he only appears in the first mission of the Bonefire arc, where he's raiding the Hellions for some kind of magic robe. Is there somewhere else that I missed, that refers to him as being supreme Skull lord?

I can sympathize with the feeling that the 5-10 level range was rather limiting. If I had developed this independently of the contest, I probably would've opened it up to at least level 14, or whatever the Skulls maximum level is. I'm afraid the contest terms completely dictated the level range, though.

Anyway, thanks again for your comments!

2/26/2010

Monday

Sold a couple Kinetic Combat IOs, an ACC/DMG for 30M and a DMG/RCHG for 40M. Bought 5 Kinetic Combat (ACC/DMG) recipes for 5M each, 5 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END) recipes for 45M each.

Kyrie Eleison (40 fire/regen scrapper) solo'd Lars Hansen's "A Madman's Council" arc for 8 merits and unlocked the Ernesto Hess TF contact.


Tuesday

Sold 2 Kinetic Combat (ACC/DMG) IOs for 30M, 1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/RCHG) for 40M.

Lady Arachne (50 wolf spider) joined a speed Recluse SF (34m 46s) and got a Membrane SHO. Did some crafting afterwards and slotted a Luck of the Gambler (DMG/END) into her Combat Training: Defensive, making a set of 3 for a +1.13% hp bonus.

Started San Min, a newbie MA/willpower scrapper with a theme of being a patriotic hero of Nationalist China. I have a scrapper with a similar concept on Triumph already, but thought starting over would be more fun than server transferring. Solo'd newbie missions to level 4, played through Suppression, a loosely re-imagined "Wizard of Oz" AE story arc (gave it 4 stars), then solo'd some more to get to level 6.

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) did a speed ITF (26m 15s).


Wednesday

Sold another Kinetic Combat (ACC/DMG) IO for 30M. Writing about routine individual sales is kinda dull, so just going to note big ticket sales/purchases and general trends from now on.

Shield Maiden (22 mace/shield brute) solo'd the villain cape mission and did a Steel Canyon mayhem.

Kyrie Eleison (40 fire/regen scrapper) joined a Dr. Quaterfield TF with mostly Whirligig SG. We had one defender disconnect repeatedly and eventually give up on playing; the rest of us did 12 of the 22 missions, after which it was really late and we agreed to continue the TF another night. Unfortunately some people quit the TF instead of simply logging out; after we realized this, it was decided to abandon the TF and restart it from the beginning sometime in the future. Nevertheless this got Kyrie to level 41.


Thursday

Someone I knew asked me to join a pickup Manticore TF he was forming; he asked for a tanker but I had a hard time believing we needed a tank for Manticore TF, so I volunteered myself to play a kin defender instead (Darla Doppler, 38 kin/sonic defender). We ended up with a team of 3 scrappers, 1 peacebringer, 1 rad controller, 2 kin defenders, 1 rad defender. As a high(er) level character, I got given the star in order to super-sidekick everyone to the maximum level for the TF. On this team we had a scrapper who asked not to be SB'd, then quit after mission 1 since he was out of time; he didn't really seem to understand what a TF was. His quitting the team bugged out the TF; finishing the second mission, we instantly were given the same mission again. I got the team to all try calling Manticore, and the original team leader was able to call him again, which broke us out of this cycle. Despite these hijinks we finished in 58m 1s.

AEntertainment Tonight on KJSR radio did a review of my Two Tickets to Westerly story arc. They really disliked the nickname I had initially used for the big end boss (I'm kinda glad I changed this recently due to some other feedback) and felt the story wasn't very true to the official canon; of the four reviewers, they variously scored it 2.5, 4.5, 4.5, and 4.5 stars. Sounded like they gave it a fair shake, though, so I can't complain.

Playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) I joined Whirligig SG for a Sister Psyche TF (1hr 29m), a Statesman TF (1hr 9m, got a Lysosome SHO) and an Imperious TF (cleared most, 45m 13s). I didn't really need the TF badges on any alt (clearly, a sign that I need to start more alts), and the team was buttering me up by praising Police Woman's mad Full Auto skills, so I had a good time playing my main character for most of the night.

Finished the night tinkering with my Attack of the 50 Foot Villain story arc, trying to solve an intermittent problem with triggered objectives not always spawning. I think this is really a bug with the AE system, so isn't easy for me to solve with the tools we're given, but I tried moving objectives around and simplifying the sequence that they're triggered in, hoping to minimize the chance of this weird bug occurring.

#1. Clutch
#2. Juggertha
#3. Eddy Swan

2/22/2010

Thursday

Quick Katie (41 plant/kin controller) did a speed ITF (20m 57s) that got her to level 42.

Lady Arachne (50 wolf spider) did a speed LGTF (23m 0s).

Strong Woman (48 inv/SS tanker) did a Statesman TF with a team of 1 tanker (me), 3 blasters, 3 controllers, 1 scrapper. I was asked to play tanker for this, and being only level 48 and the first time tanking STF for me, I suspect it was because no other tanker players were around at the time. I think I mostly did okay in the earlier (easy) parts of the STF, except I was too slow to grab aggro on Dr. Aeon (I somehow managed to get web grenaded out of LOS from Dr Aeon and couldn't taunt him until the web grenade ended). In the final mission, I was able to taunt the 4 patron AVs and keep them all occupied long enough for the team to kill them, and was able to keep the Arachnos Flyer busy til it was killed, too. I was carrying 7 tier 3 Break Frees out of paranoia that Ghost Widow would hold me, but it never actually happened.

Lord Recluse himself, however, was really nasty. I survived for awhile eating tier 3 Lucks and Sturdies. This kept me alive long enough for the team to drop the red tower, but then I died and things kinda went to hell. I got into a hospital -> fly back -> taunt -> die -> hospital -> get TP'd back -> taunt -> die (repeat) cycle; it did not feel like I could tank Lord Recluse at all. I eventually started madly kiting, taunting LR from a distance and then hiding behind a tower, then running away and taunting some more. This felt very cowardly but kept me alive longer while keeping LR off the team. We eventually destroyed the yellow tower and the green tower and then Lord Recluse himself, finishing the STF in 46m 19s. Strong Woman got level 49, a Lysosome SHO and a Soulbound Allegiance (chance for build up) recipe.

I felt like I didn't do a good enough job of tanking Lord Recluse, so I spent some time thinking about why, and posted a request for help on the Tanker forum that garnered a lot of useful advice. In fairness, the team I was on assigned no one to heal the tanker (but this is not abnormal for STFs I'm on, so I figured I was still missing something) and our rad said that his debuffs on LR kept getting knocked off due to stuns from random minion aggro (which we apparently got from stray controller pets). Nevertheless I'm trying to gear up with better IOs/accolades and learn better tactics for the next time.

After that I played Mega (50 SS/will brute) on a Recluse SF. This went pretty well (I seemed to do better tanking this than the STF; of course, Mega is higher level and more heavily IO'd out) though we had a semi-wipe on Crimson when some ballista detention fielded me during the fight. I also found that I could use Hurl to drop Sister Psyche out of the sky in mission 3, which seemed useful. Finished in 37m 2s and got a Centriole SHO.

Finished the night playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) through A Hero in Need is a Friend Indeed, an AE arc for Dr. Aeon's 2nd Challenge, where you help Statesman deal with losing his powers. This started off pretty slow but I thought it had a good ending; I gave it 5 stars.


Friday

Police Woman got the Intern day job badge (for being logged out in Portal Corp) and the Scientist accolade, giving her a total of 626 badges.

Thesia (26 mind/sonic controller) did another Sister Psyche TF with Whirligig SG. Our team mix was 1 tanker, 1 blaster, 3 defenders, 3 controllers, and the blaster almost immediately disconnected and never came back. As a result our team had really low DPS, which made it something of a grind. Still finished in 2h 9m and got Thesia to level 27.


Saturday

Kyrie Eleison (37 fire/regen scrapper) joined a Manticore TF of mostly fire-themed Sisterhood & friends. We had 4 fire blasters, 2 fire scrappers, rad controller, emp defender. We cleared some and stealthed some and finished in 1hr 17m, getting Kyrie to level 38. Kyrie's white-recolored fire/regen powers got a "You're very shiny" comment from my team; which is pretty much what I was going for.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a speed ITF on a 7-player team in 27m 24s, then a speed LGTF in 25m 51s.

Samurai-ko (43 katana/will scrapper) did an Abandoned Sewer Trial in 26m 51s, getting to level 44.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined a Master of the LGTF attempt (is there really a MoLGTF badge? our team leader seemed to think so) with Whirligig SG. We cleared most mobs, not stealthing or deliberately failing anything. A squishy caught aggro from mitos in mission 4 and died, but we kept on going, ultimately finishing LGTF in 1h 23m.

Arrow Girl (40 archery/dev blaster) joined a Numina TF with Whirligig SG, finishing in 1hr 25m and getting to level 41.


Sunday

I solo'd Millie Volt (40 elec/elec brute) through A Demons Vengeance, a villainous AE story arc where you help a demon beat up various wizards that annoyed it. It was okay, but needed more writing and more stuff to do in the missions. I gave it 3 stars.

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined an ITF; we had a weird team makeup with 2 force fielders and no kin. So we weren't super fast but we were quite safe. Finished in 33m 4s and I got a Respec recipe drop. They seemed to be selling for 300M at Wentworth's; this seemed crazy high, but I went ahead and listed the Respec recipe for sale at that price (costing me 15M just to make the listing). But of course the price fell to around 200M shortly after that and I still haven't sold it.

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) joined a semi-speedy LGTF. I had respec'd into TP Foe recently (mostly as a mule power to store more Blessing of the Zephyr sets in) and tried using them on the mitos in mission 4, but that trick didn't seem to work any more. Somehow our team messed up the final mission, failing to assign anyone to TP the squishies to the end of the map; since I had recall friend, I ended up attempting a run to the end to TP everyone else. (It helped that I was able to recall friend a dead person and vengeance off of them before beginning my run.) The team leader declared me "MVP" of the TF as a result, which was nice. Finished in 35m 17s.

Kyrie Eleison (38 fire/regen scrapper) joined a fire-themed Sisterhood team on a Synapse TF. We were a little slow moving (pausing often to sell and AFK and stuff) but didn't have any serious problems, defeated Babbage and completed the TF in 2h 39m, getting Kyrie to level 39.

After that I played Millie Volt (40 elec/elec brute) on a Whirligig clear-most ITF. We had only 7 players and I ended up AFKing through mission 2 to get dinner from a takeout place, which I'm sure slowed things down. Had a near wipe against the Phalanx Computer in mission 3, but a scrapper and stalker managed to drop the computer after the rest of us got defeated. The rest of the ITF went fine, though, and we finished in 54m 32s, getting Millie to level 41.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a speed ITF after that; had a teammate call her background story "intense". After beating Romulus in the final mission, the team split up, with 4 players going to each of the two towers. My sub-team got mostly clobbered, unfortunately, except for me, and I was surviving by eating orange inspirations; though a teammate said that "Mega is the last one standing, she probably ate the others". We finished the ITF but I forgot to write down the time.

Arrow Girl (41 archery/dev blaster) did another Synapse TF, this time with Whirligig. We had a pretty strong team (tanker, 2 defenders, 3 controllers, 2 blasters) and finished in 1hr 38m, defeating Babbage with no outside help. This got Arrow Girl the Task Force Commander accolade. I also got a level 20 Eradication (chance for energy damage) recipe drop.

Kyrie Eleison (39 fire/regen scrapper) joined yet another ITF; we cleared most. Our team mix (2 kins, 1 cold, 1 stormy, 2 scrappers, 1 blaster, 1 soldier) didn't seem to quite be working and we had a lot of deaths. I got a lot better at managing Moment of Glory and the various regen clickies (including Revive) as a result. The new MoG actually seems pretty good; with a huge RES and DEF boost for 15 seconds, it's kind of a get-out-of-jail free card for dangerous moments. The team wasn't sure if we could handle Romulus with our team makeup; but when Imperious aggroed unexpectedly on Romulus, rather than let him die I decided to MoG and rush in. I somehow survived this and we finished the ITF in 1hr 2m, getting Kyrie to level 40.

A friend had heard I was looking for a Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control (RCHG/END) on red side and offered to sell it to me. He wanted to give it to me for cheap, but I didn't want to rip him off, so we got into this weird backwards negotiation on the sale price. I offered him 100M infamy, but he wanted only 25M infamy. I counteroffered with 50M infamy, then we finally agreed on 32M infamy. I used this to complete a set of 6 Gaussians for Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor), giving +2.5% DEF to all positions; her standing-around range DEF is now up to 41.42%.

The blue-side salvage market has felt a little soft lately, and I ended up diversifying by starting up trading of Kinetic Combat IOs. I had been buying Kinetic Combat recipes anyway, to keep under the 2B influence cap, then crafted them to put them in IO storage bins, so I had a lot of Kinetic Combat IOs sitting around anyway. Over the weekend I sold:

1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/RCHG) for 40M
1 Kinetic Combat (ACC/DMG) for 20M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END) for 70M
2 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) for 90M each

People seem to want these IOs; it feels like they've been selling at a reasonable clip for a decent profit.

I finished the night logging on Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller). I had left some buy orders at Wentworth's for her, some of which had filled; I got

1 Unbreakable Constraint (HEAL/RCHG) for 75M
1 Unbreakable Constraint (HEAL/RCHG/ACC) for 60M
1 Coercive Persuasion (CONFUSE/RCHG) for 7.7M

and some Performance Shifter recipes for smaller amounts of infl. Slotted 4 Performance Shifter (including the +end proc) in Spacegirl's Stamina power for +1.88% max HP and +2.5% recovery bonuses.

I finished the night playing Spacegirl on a pickup team that beat up Neuron and Anti-Matter for the Dimensional Warder credit.

Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City review
Arc ID: 351727
Keywords: Custom Characters, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 30-54

(Note: I played this on 2/12/2010. Arc may have changed since then.)

The premise is to stop the 5th Column from breaking up a heroic duo. I played a 50 AR/dev blaster, heavily IO'd for recharge, on default difficulty. The contact is a custom character in a suit named "The Professor".

[5.0] to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact asks me to find out what happened to a pair of heroes that went up against the 5th Column.

[-0.01] Formatting: caption for mission should be in larger font or bolded for emphasis.

[-0.1] Custom contact should introduce himself and explain how he's connected to this. Why should I trust this Professor that I've never met? How does he know Hammer and Sickle and what they're up to?

[-0.01] Objectives: I was sent here to rescue Hammer and Sickle, but I only have "Rescue American Hammer" as an objective. Why don't I have "Rescue Sickle" as an objective?

I quickly found American Hammer and rescued him; this triggered "Defeat Toxin" as an objective and gave me the "American Hammer" clue.

[-0.1] Don't understand: What happened to Sickle? "American Hammer" clue implies that Toxin is responsible, but he never says what exactly happened. It doesn't seem like something he'd hold back. Could use some more explanation of who Toxin is, too.

Found Toxin, who spawned as a lieutenant for me. American Hammer (who was a boss) quickly crushed him with just a little help from me. Toxin said something about escaping from Crey, but he was a 5th Column mob.

[-0.01] Costume: Toxin was dressed in red and white which initially made me think he was a Longbow. If he's meant to be a 5th Column mob, he should really use their color scheme (black/grey/red).

Defeating Toxin gave me the "A Missing Blade" clue and triggered a "Recover Information" objective.

[-0.1] Don't understand: "A Missing Blade" says New York Sickle is Toxin's latest victim; if this is the case, why do I "need to interrogate the villain who has taken her" to find out where she is? I've just defeated Toxin, couldn't I interrogate him? Surely Toxin should know what he did with Sickle.

Backtracking a bit, I found a Computer Terminal that satisfied "Recover Information", giving me the "Computer Information" clue and completing the mission. This information doesn't seem particularly helpful for finding Sickle, so not sure why it was a required objective.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "congratulations on your job well done" -> "congratulations on a job well done" (in debriefing)

[4.66] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: Hammer ends up interrogating Toxin to no avail. Instead we come up with a new method of enhanced interrogation, directly connecting Toxin's brain to the AE system. There's a lot of technobabble about how this works and what limitations there might be.

[-0.1] Don't understand: how does re-playing Toxin's origin story in AE actually contribute to finding Sickle?

[-0.01] Don't understand: how does the contact know we should be looking for a filing cabinet? Story has already established that Toxin wasn't willing to say anything.

Found the aforementioned filing cabinet in the very first room; it gave me "Toxic Warfare Files", which seems to imply the Crey were working with Toxin. This seems inconsistent with the fact that Toxin is actually a prisoner here? (Later clarified by the "Zero for One" clue, though.)

Rescued The Mechanic, a boss ally who gave me the "Power On!" clue. I like his costume. Superstrength/kinetics/flying seems like weird power choices for an electronics genius; I guess we're "in a simulation" though so he could have any powerset he wanted.

Found a weapon rack that gave me the "High Tech Weapons" clue and triggered "Recover Chemical Samples" as an objective.



Found Toxin (spawned as a lieutenant for me) and defeated him, getting the "Zero for One: A Rookie's First Outing" clue. The Mechanic (a boss) made Toxin awfully easy.

[-0.1] Game balance: in both last mission and this mission, I had a boss ally but the bad guy of the mission was only a lieutenant, which made the fight pretty trivial.

Clicking on a "Refrigerated Toxins Locker" gave me the "Two Mysteries" clue and completed the mission.

[-0.01] Involvement: would be nicer if the player could understand the significance of the chemicals and the note, rather than requiring her to just take them back to the Professor to have him explain.

This mission developed Toxin's back story, but even after the debriefing, I'm not sure how this mission contributed towards finding Sickle. We already knew he had toxic and psychic powers, after all.

[4.44] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: the contact conjectures that the 5th Column would like to steal ammunition for the Crey chemical weapons from Steel Canyon University.

[-0.1] Hard to believe: This seems like a huge leap of logic. Why would Steel Canyon University be storing chemical weapons, and what makes us think the 5th Column would go after the university instead of, for example, another Crey facility, considering Crey is the manufacturer of these chemical weapons?

[-0.1] Plot problem: this mission seems to have nothing to do with rescuing Sickle and the contact admits it. Why is investigating Toxin's back story more important than finding and rescuing Sickle?

[-0.01] Awkward phrasing: "Go recover that ammunition before the 5th Column tries to take it before you do" doesn't scan. Perhaps "Go recover the chemicals before the 5th Column gets them."



Inside the mission, I quickly locate the barrel of chemicals, but apparently someone has already stolen them. Clicking the barrel triggers "Defeat Tovarisch".

[-0.01] Objectives: Who is Tovarisch? Has not been mentioned before now, so why do I think I need to defeat him? Perhaps "Find who stole the chemicals" would be a more logical objective.

[-0.01] Tovarisch, being the Russian word for comrade, is a very odd name for a 5th Column operative. (Also potentially confusing with the Rogue Isles Villain called "Comrade".) Based on his description, maybe he should be in his own villain group, "Mercenaries" or something.

When I fight him, he says:

[NPC] Tovarisch: A heroic spy! Seize the spy!

[-0.01] Dialog: it might make sense for him to call a hero infiltrating a 5th Column base a spy, but it does NOT make sense when in Paragon City University.

Defeating Tovarisch gives me "A Friend in Need?" as a clue; not sure why this clue is named that, since Tovarisch is not a friend.

[4.20] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: the contact says at great length he is sending some kind of badass ally to help me out, but does not actually explain what the mission is.

[-0.1] Diminishes the player: the contact talks up this new ally he's sending to help me enough that I think it reduces the importance of the player in the story.

Send-off message: the contact finally explains the mission. We're to intercept a 5th Column ship heading for Striga Isle, look for Sickle, work with Pistola, then make sure Pistola (who is apparently a Council operative?) doesn't try to take advantage of the situation.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: If we don't trust Pistola, it seems like a pretty bad idea to deliberately recruit Pistola as an ally for an important mission.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "biological warfare" should be "chemical warfare" (I think the weapons described so far are chemical, not biological? if not, needs to be made clearer.)

[-0.1] Inconsistent: the contact very clearly listed three objectives, but the nav tool only lists two objectives when I enter. Should have an objective to look for Sickle.

I quickly stealthed to the Experimental Weapons and captured them without a fight. (That seemed too easy.) I'm a little puzzled as to why the 5th Column aren't actually carrying these weapons around, since they went to all the trouble of acquiring the weapons and special ammo, but will let that go.

Now that I've recovered the weapons, my only remaining objective is to Find Pistola. But Pistola is only here to help me find the weapons, so why isn't the mission over at this point?

[-0.1] Don't understand: Why is finding Pistola a required objective? The contact clearly told me not to trust him, so if I can recover the weapons without him, shouldn't that be a good idea?

After searching the ship, I eventually find Manual Pistola and free him. This proves to be a bad idea as he immediately says:

[NPC] Manuel Pistola: Those guns are going to the Council, hero!
[NPC] Manuel Pistola: The Column are predictable. They likely have their plans written down somewhere easily visible.

and starts attacking me. The order he said these messages didn't quite make sense; I'm guessing the second line is meant to foreshadow the "Find Information" objective that he triggers and the first line is his betray message, and he instantly betrayed me because I found the weapons before I found him. The fact that he instantly betrays me, kind of reinforces to me the idea that he shouldn't be a required objective.

Stealthing around some more, I found a whiteboard that gave me "Map of Striga Isle" and ended the mission.

[-0.1] Needs more content: this mission map felt light on content, being a big ship full of 5th Column with no dialog, and only 3 objectives (two of which were simple glowy clicks). Suggest you add some optional objectives; perhaps a patrol with some dialog, a 5th Column boss, maybe some 5th Column special operatives equipped with the experimental chemical weapons; basically, more stuff to make this mission seem more alive.

[3.69] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: so Sickle has been found and she's been brainwashed into joining the 5th Column. American Hammer and I are sent to go after her.

Entering the mission, I find American Hammer and free him; he becomes a Boss level ally. He gives the "Vengeance" clue.

We find New York Sickle who fights us.



She spawns as a boss and has build up and some regen, but we take her down. This gives the "New York Sickle" clue which suggests "You can only hope that there is an antidote" and triggers "Find Medical Supplies for New York Sickle".

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: what makes us think there's an antidote? "You can only hope that there is an antidote" seems like a pretty weak reason. Would be stronger if New York Sickle gasped something about an antidote as you drop her, or if Toxin or Tovarisch said something earlier about an antidote. Needs more foreshadowing.

Found a Medical Supplies glowy that gave me an "Antivenom Medical Supplies" clue.

[-0.01] Involvement: Would be nicer if the player could use the antidote on Sickle, rather than having to take it back to the Professor first.

[-0.1] Needs more content: Rescuing Hammer and Sickle wasn't bad, but I felt like this mission needed something more, especially being the final mission. Maybe a 5th Column boss that was controlling Sickle, some patrols talking about the recently converted hero and how they're going to wipe the floor with the Council now, more guys armed with chemical weapons (unless the idea is that we've already captured them all), maybe some hints of what evil!Sickle is up to (perhaps optional glowies with battle plans against the Council, or other clues hinting at what the 5th Column is doing here other than just waiting for us to beat them up).

[3.57] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I liked the overall idea of rescuing Sickle from the 5th Column. I thought the plot went off track in missions 2 and 3 which didn't clearly contribute to locating Sickle; it felt like we ended up abandoning Sickle and pursuing an unrelated toxic weapons subplot, and only end up locating Sickle by accident while chasing down the chem weapons. Felt like missions 4 and 5 needed a little something more to make them more exciting.

Rounding 3.57 up, I gave this arc 4 stars.
----

My queue is now:

Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290 (N40-54)
StyrofoamKing - one of Save the Villain #364597 (N1-54), Shadow of the Red Death #367071 (H5-40), Betrayal in Rome #369445 (N35-54)
@Gypsy Rose - Suppression #374481 (H5-10)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290 (N40-54)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54)
@Peregrine Falcon - The Hidden Hand #374410 (H30-54)

A Demons Vengeance review
Arc ID: 47949
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 5-54
Warnings: EBs

The premise is to help a demon against a magic-user he has a grudge against. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the level 5 to 54 level range; it's very rare that an arc can be equally well balanced for a level 5 and a level 50. I played a 40 elec/elec brute with mostly SOs and some IOs, on default difficulty. The contact is a custom model, a demonic looking creature with a chaos symbol.

[5.0] points to start.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "A Demons Vengeance" should be "A Demon's Vengeance" (arc title)

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact wants me to question the CoT regarding the location of a cult that has annoyed him in the past.

[-0.01] Formatting: the caption of this briefing should be in a larger font, or bold, or something else to make it stand out from the rest of the briefing.

[-0.01] Formatting: as currently presented, all the paragraphs kind of run together to make a wall of text; I really recommend you put a blank line between paragraphs, like a paragraph break. (You can use two line breaks to do this.)

[-0.01] Typo: "summoning u-me" probably should be "summoning me"

[-0.01] Phrasing: the two sentences in the briefing starting with "One at least had some talent" and also "Once I escaped" are both overly long and run-on. I'd suggest splitting the first into three sentences (break up between "talent" and "while I was", also between "spell" and "it stripped") and the second also into three sentences (break up between "spell on me" and "even now", and also between "approach them" and "I can however").

[-0.01] Grammar: "The Circle group is lead by a Mage" should be "The Circle group is led by a Mage" (in send-off message)

[-0.01] Phrasing: sentence starting with "They are raiding" is overly long and run-on (4 lines). Break into several sentences.

[-0.01] Objective: "Interrogate Arathos" is identical to the mission title "Interrogate Arathos"; I suggest you rephrase one of them slightly to make them not as repetitive. For example, the mission could be "Find Cult Location" while the objective could be "Interrogate Arathos".

Exploring the office building, I find a treasure chest labeled "The Artifacts" which I grab. Clicking it doesn't really do anything though.

[-0.1] Needs a clue: clicking The Artifacts should give a clue or something, perhaps mentioning something about what the player just stole. Having it do nothing is a bit unsatisfying.

Deeper in the office building I find Arathos, a custom mob in an Egyptian headdress who spawned as a lieutenant for me.

[-0.1] Description needs more writing: currently Arathos' custom description is just "A new force in the Circle of Thorns". I think some more next is needed here.

While I'm approaching Arathos, he says:

[NPC] Arathos: Get the artifacts my minions, we must return to Oranbrega

[-0.01] Typo: "Oranbrega" -> "Oranbega". Also, needs a period at the end of that sentence.

While I fight him, he says:



[NPC] Arathos: Stop that, I'm a sadist not a Masochist

[-0.01] Punctuation: needs a period at the end of the sentence. Also, not sure why Masochist is capitalized but sadist is lowercase; should be the same for both.

When I beat Arathos, he gives me "The Leader Talks" as a clue.

[-0.1] Clue needs more writing: currently this clue literally says "The Circle leader gives you the location of the Cult of the Spectral Eye". This needs more writing to flesh it out. For example, you could say the Cult is located in a secret cave under Skyway City, or something like that. Just saying "he gives you the location" isn't detailed enough.

[-0.1] Gameplay: this mission needed more to do in it. There were 3 floors of office building, but really only one boss to fight and an optional glowy that did not seem to do much. Consider adding more mission details, or using a smaller map.

[-0.01] Mission exit popup needs more writing: "You got the information" is too short and too generic, doesn't really add enough. Try putting some text here that helps convey part of the story.

[-0.1] Debriefing needs more writing: right now it's less than half a line. Should really have some more text here, perhaps elaborating on the information that was found, and what it means for the story.

[4.39] at end of mission 1

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact now wants me to go kill someone named Rathakar the Binder.

[-0.1] Needs explanation: I don't think Rakathar the Binder has ever been mentioned before this. I believe the Mission 1 briefing just mentioned that "one of" the cultists was especially powerful; was this Rakathar? The clues in my journal don't mention him either. The story would flow a bit better if earlier clues or text mentioned Rakathar, or at the very least mission 2's briefing explained a little more about who Rakathar the Binder is. Also the line "if he has a slave bring it to me" really deserves some more explanation too; as presented, it seems rather random and unconnected.

[-0.01] Typo: Mission entry popup calls the boss "Rathakar" but the mission briefing and title call him "Rakathar". Also needs a period at the end of the sentence.

The mission is full of a custom group called "Spectral Eye". It strikes me as a little odd that a group of magical cultists would be in biker jackets and hanging out in an office building, but there are weirder cults out there than that, so going to let that go. Though, since these guys are all members of the "Spectral Eye", you might consider using one of the "Eye" chest logos for them?



[-0.1] Game balance: These missions are labeled 5-54 for level range. I had no problem as a level 40, but with custom enemies, it will be way too hard for a level 5.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "These are the mid level organisers of the cult they tap into the power of the netherworld to back up the cultists who do the dirty work" ... should probably be two sentences or rephrased slightly. (In "Spectral Eye Darker" description. "Darker" is kind of a strange word to use as a noun, also.)

Deep in the mission, I found a Spectral Eye Adept with some dialog. He says:

[NPC] Spectral Eye Adept: Fools I wield power beyond your comprehension!

[-0.01] Punctuation: should be more like "Fools! I wield power beyond your comprehension!"

Defeating the Spectral Eye Adept completes the mission. I guess he was Rakathar? No, wait, he gives "The Adept Speaks" as a clue which says Rakathar is gone.

[-0.1] Confusing: defeating the Adept completes the "Defeat Rakathar" objective, but he IS NOT Rakathar, he just gives the "Your Princess is in Another Castle" speech.

[-0.1] Gameplay: This mission didn't have enough stuff in it. The Spectral Eye Adept seemed to be the only mission detail, and was the only mob with any dialog or clues. Could really use some patrols with dialog, or some sort of optional objectives or other items of interest. Or alternatively, you could possibly cut this mission and have the CoT immediately direct you to the "secret fortress" that Rakathar supposedly has gone to.

[-0.1] Debriefing needs more writing; currently, less than half a line. I'd recommend adding some text here reviewing what happened during the mission and where the story is going from here.

[3.86] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: the contact wants me to travel to the secret fortress and get the slave of Rakathar.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why is the slave of Rakathar so important? He even says "I want the slave more than I want him dead." Why? This has not been made clear.

[-0.1] Don't understand: how do we know where the secret fortress is? Was the Adept meant to have told us?

[-0.01] Typo: "defeats all who oppose you" -> "defeat all who oppose you"

[-0.01] Mission accept message is the default "Accept"; should customize this to something appropriate for this mission.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: Mission title is "Defeat Rakathar" and the sole objective is "Rakathar the Binder", but the contact says again and again that it's more important to get Rakathar's slave, so this doesn't match.

[-0.01] Objective: "Rakathar the Binder" is the default objective name and should be rephrased to something with a verb, like "Defeat Rakathar" or "Defeat cult leader".

[-0.01] Redundant: this mission title and objective is basically identical to those of mission 2. This makes the story feel a little repetitive, which can be a turn off for players.

Entering the Midnight Club map I find Rakathar the Binder in the conference room and defeat him.

[-0.1] Missing text: Rakathar's description is just three words, "Finally your Quarry". Should really give some more background detail here, since he is important to the story.

Defeating Rakathar and his guard gives me the "Rathakar makes you an offer" clue and completes the mission.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: the actual mob is named "Rakathar", but the clue calls him "Rathakar". You may need to settle on one spelling and use it throughout the arc.

[-0.01] Formatting: the clue clearly has paragraphs but could use an extra blank line between those paragraphs. You can add these with a double line break, <br><br>.

[-0.01] Typo: "I sold here" should be "I sold her" (in "Rathakar makes you an offer").

[-0.1] Gameplay: This mission needs more to do in it; Rakathar was the only mission detail I could find, and the only mob that had any dialog.

[3.38] at end of mission 3

Mission 4
Briefing: the contact wants me to go after Rakathar's slave and beat up the Family boss who now has her.

[-0.01] Mission accept message is the default "Accept"; should customize this to something appropriate for this mission.

The mission is in a cargo ship filled with custom "Benedetto Familia" mobsters.

[-0.01] Seems redundant: why create a custom Benedetto Familia when we already have an existing Family enemy group?

[-0.01] Objective: "Sister Agony" is the default objective text, should be rephrased into something with a verb, like "Capture Sister Agony" or "Rescue Sister Agony".

I found and rescued Sister Agony, who becomes an ally.



[-0.1] Missing text: Sister Agony's description is just four words, "The Slave - Sister Agony", two of which are her name. Should really give some more background detail here, since she is important to the story.

This does trigger "Teach Don Casale a lesson" as an objective, though I'm not too sure why he wasn't an objective to begin with. I end up having to backtrack a bit to find him.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why is Don Casale triggered by rescuing Sister Agony? If he was already on ths ship, couldn't I have defeated him independently of rescuing her? The contact did tell me he would be here and that he wants me to kill him.

Defeating Don Casale completed the mission.

Debriefing: the contact thanks me for rescuing Sister Agony and warns me not to use her against him.

[-0.1] Ending seems unsatisfying: since this is a villainous arc, what did I get out of doing this?

[-0.01] Formatting: Souvenir needs paragraph breaks (add a double line break between paragraphs).

[-0.01] Typo: "the cults leader" -> "the cult's leader" and "the cults headquarters" -> "the cult's headquarters" (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Typo: "the slaves location" -> "the slave's location" (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Typo: "it's location" -> "its location" (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "who transpired to be her Mate", don't think "transpired" is used correctly here; perhaps "who turned out to be her mate" (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Typo: "keeo his secret" -> "keep his secret" (in souvenir)

[2.99] at end of mission 4

Overall
Not bad, but could use some more writing in places; there were several mob descriptions and debriefings that could use more text in them. Most of the missions could use more mission details; the first three really only have the boss of each mission as an objective.

I'd really recommend constraining the level range, some, also; the custom mobs weren't too bad, but would be too hard for a level 5. Perhaps level 22-54 would be more reasonable?

Anyway, I gave this arc 3 stars. Hope you think that's fair!

----

My queue is now:

Tubbius - Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City #351727 (H30-54)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290 (N40-54)
StyrofoamKing - one of Save the Villain #364597 (N1-54), Shadow of the Red Death #367071 (H5-40), Betrayal in Rome #369445 (N35-54)
@Gypsy Rose - Suppression #374481 (H5-10)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290 (N40-54)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54)
@Peregrine Falcon - The Hidden Hand #374410 (H30-54)

OK, looks like TZ is the winner for a new nickname for the boss.

Changes made

1. "Panty" changed to "TZ" throughout the arc.

2. Added "Tzompantli's Curse" as a clue on defeat of the boss in mission 4. It's not super-creative as curses go, but figured it's meant to just communicate a moment of snarling defiance from the defeated boss.

3. Marked the arc "Final" since that seems to be the thing to do for submissions.


Thanks a ton for all the feedback! It has helped a lot.

My main character is a blaster, and I often play corruptors and defenders, but I have many alts. Yesterday I was asked to play my invuln/SS tanker on a Statesman TF. I have done the Statesman TF many times on squishies or scrappers; this was my first time tanking it. I felt like I did okay up to the very last encounter, Lord Recluse himself.

I ate a bunch of orange and purple inspirations which kept me alive until the team dropped the first tower (the red one), but I died almost the same time as the red tower, and then got stuck in a loop of hospital -> fly back to LR -> die -> hospital -> get TP'd back to LR -> die -> hospital -> etc. Yes, even after the red tower was down. After I ran out of inspirations I started madly kiting LR around, i.e., taunting him away from the team, then running away to hide behind a tower, taunting him again, etc. This felt very cowardly for a tanker but seemed to keep me alive a little longer while keeping LR off the team. We eventually beat down the towers and Lord Recluse himself, but it was a somewhat humbling experience.

I'd like to know how to do better for next time; whether building better, slotting IOs better, or using better tactics.

I don't have a Mids build at hand, but my tanker is invuln/SS with Fitness, Fighting (tough and weave), Flight and Energy Mastery. I have all the invuln powers except Unstoppable (I don't really like the crash at the end; but do I *need* this to stand up to LR?) and Jab/Haymaker/Taunt/KO Blow/Rage/Foot Stomp from SS. My enhancements are a mix of IO sets and SOs; I have four sets of 4 Kinetic Combat slotted in attacks, which gets my smash/lethal DEF to around 30%.

Reviewing my combat log I could see that LR's lethal attacks bounced off of my 90% lethal resist, but he had energy attacks and maybe some other exotic damage attacks that ate me up. The rad on our team said he was trying to keep Radiation Infection on LR, but was occasionally getting stunned by random Arachnos minions so that the debuffs would fall off. I did not have a dedicated healer assigned to keep me alive; but, most STF teams I've been on don't seem to assign anyone to focus on healing the tanker, so I'm not sure that is exceptional.

I can afford to burn a respec and throw a billion or so infl at this problem if it would help. But, I'm not sure what the best solution is. (I'm not willing to restart as a stone tanker.)

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks for reviewing A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force!

I laughed at your description of how Chimera picks his secret bases -- yeah, I did pick that map to be similar to the place you normally find Chimera in the official content.

In answer to your question about Mako and Black Scorpion, yes, they are the same custom model, with a slightly different description for each. My original idea was to create four custom AVs to replace all the patron AVs, but that took too much disk space (custom characters are resource hogs!). I ended up re-using the standard Ghost Widow and Scirocco models to save space, but felt the Mako and Black Scorpion models were too out-of-theme for the feudal Japan setting, so gave them a custom AV model. Unfortunately I didn't have quite enough space to give them different custom models, unless I cut something else.

Thanks again!

Changes made

1. Added a period at the end of the mission accept message for missions 1 and 2. (To be consistent with missions 3 and 4.)

2. Retitled mission 3 to "Descend into the Depths" and mission 4 to "Battle the Death Cult". (Makes them start with a verb, more consistent with missions 1 and 2.)

3. Added unaware dialog for Marrowsnap:

Marrowsnap: That hero got me with a cheap shot. Yeah, I hadta get my girl to bail me out; didn't seem smart to bug Panty, she's in one of her god-touched moods.

(To explain why Marrowsnap appears; another Skulls girlfriend reference to continue that theme; more foreshadowing for the big bad.)


Vote tally so far on boss nickname

Panty: 1
Zompy: 1
Pantsu: 1
TZ: 1

....well that's really decisive pesky democracy!

2/18/2010

Thursday

Played Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) on an ITF. This TF took a long time to form and felt rather low DPS; cleared most, finished in 55m 26s. On the bright side, I got an Apocalypse (DMG/RCHG/ACC) recipe drop.

Shield Maiden (22 mace/shield brute) solo'd through Serpent's Scheme, an AE arc where you battle a mysterious reptile cult. This was a decent story but needed a little more writing in places; I gave it 4 stars.


Friday

I played Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) on a Whirligig team running Maria Jenkins' Praetorian arc at +4 difficulty. We beat up Siege, Bobcat, Neuron, Battle Maiden, Black Swan, Malaise, Mother Mayhem, Diabolique, Infernal, Dominatrix and Marauder. I picked up an Apocalypse (DMG/END) recipe drop. I switched to Kyrie Eleison (34 fire/regen scrapper) for the very last mission against Tyrant, in order to get the Statesman's Pal badge (which Star Amethyst already had). We had a team wipe in the final room due to overaggroing most of the room onto us, but after regrouping we beat up Tyrant. This got Kyrie to level 35, where I took Revive; normally not a popular choice, but I'm not a very good regen scrapper and it feels like I die a lot. I figure I can just treat Revive as another click heal.

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) joined a clear-most ITF that finished in 42m 20s; got an Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) recipe drop from a mob, which was a lucky find (it's normally a valuable Pool C recipe).


Saturday

I re-played Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) through Breaking the Barrier and Putting it Back Together, an AE arc where you cooperate with aliens to stop a dimensional portal crisis. The author had made a lot of changes to this arc since my first play-through, improving it a lot; I gave it 5 stars.

I played Thesia (23 grav/sonic controller) on a pickup Sister Psyche TF. We finished the first mission in Independence Port, then the second mission was in Steel Canyon. For some reason the team leader, a thermal controller, went to King's Row instead, and we had the following exchange in team chat:

[Team] Controller: why the hell did i go to kr?
[Team] Thesia: I dunno. Do you know how to get to Steel Canyon?
[Team] Controller: >.>
[Team] Thesia: The train should go there.
[Team] Controller: okay... lemme clarify something
[Team] Controller: don't speak to me like i started yesterday
[Team] Controller: ever.

This kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I was unimpressed by this controller's play ability so far (she had never applied fire shields on anyone and let people go to the hospital rather than rez them, despite having both those powers). After thinking about this, I ended up saying:

[Team] Thesia: That's big talk for someone who doesn't know the way to Steel Canyon :P

This resulted in me being kicked from the TF. I pretty much asked for it, since I willfully sassed the team leader after an implied threat. I guess I just couldn't let it slide. Another player also quit the TF after I was kicked from the team, and some minor drama was generated on LB channel as a result, though I tried to quiet this down (as a moderator I'm sure it's uncool for me to stir up drama). I did get called "immature" by a teenage player, which was pretty funny (but probably deserved!).

After hearing this story, a friend volunteered to form another Sister Psyche TF, which I joined. We formed an 8-player TF pretty quickly and everyone joked about getting lost on the way to missions. This second TF had a very strong team (good support and DPS) and finished in 1hr 10m, getting Thesia to level 25. Despite starting considerably later, we actually finished sooner than the TF I had been kicked from; I heard second-hand that that TF ended up taking 2h 30m.

Finished the night playing Yuki-Onna (50 ice/cold corruptor) on a speed ITF (23m 35s) and speed LGTF (26m 42s).


Saturday

Played Kyrie Eleison (35 fire/regen scrapper) and then Millie Volt (39 elec/elec brute) through the Valentine's Day missions, initially as a duo but eventually building up to a mid-sized team, to get the Beautiful badge and unlock the DJ Zero missions that give costume parts. This got Millie to level 40.

Arrow Girl (39 archery/dev blaster) joined a 4-player team doing low 40s missions in Peregrine Island. We beat the Psychic Clockwork King and got Arrow Girl to level 40.

Thesia (25 grav/sonic controller) joined a Citadel TF that finished in 59m 28s and got her to level 26.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) started soloing a flashback of Maria Jenkins' Praetorian arc, trying to pick up any Praetorian AVs I had missed. Solo'd Chimera and Shadow Hunter as EBs; had no problem staying alive (due to high defense and debuffs), but did have problems running out of END before I could kill them. Star Amethyst has decent amounts of ENDRDX slotted in her attacks, but it just takes awhile for her to kill stuff while solo, I guess. I started carrying more blues while soloing. I did luck into a Coercive Persuasion (CONFUSE) recipe drop while on this flashback.


Tuesday

I've gradually been buying up Kinetic Combat recipes from the market, mostly because Police Woman was nearing the influence cap and I needed to burn money on something. I probably soaked 1 Billion infl into various Kinetic Combat recipes, and started crafting them for alts and such. I did sell one Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) IO for 100M infl; had bought the recipe for 65M infl. With the 10M Wentworth's tax, that's about 25M profit, minus some crafting and salvage costs. IO sales are pretty erratic though, so I'm not sure it's a viable steady source of income.

Darla Doppler (36 kin/sonic defender) joined a kill-most ITF that finished in 38m 36s and got her to level 38.

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) joined an "all-rad" ITF run by Whirligig; we could only find 7 players (4 defenders, 2 controllers, 1 corruptor) but we got to stack a lot of AM. Despite being so rad heavy, it actually felt a little slow moving relative to normal ITFs. I thought our DPS was a little low; partially due to being short a player, partially due to no DPS ATs (even with 7-stacked AM, most of us were starting at wimpy defender/controller damage), partially because AVs would run from us (maybe due to no aggro control). Cleared most mobs, finished in 54m 15s.

We tried forming an STF for a bit, but couldn't get critical mass, so ended up doing another ITF, on which I played Kyrie Eleison (35 fire/regen scrapper). This was still 7 players but with a more even AT distribution. Cleared most, finished in 49m 0s and got Kyrie to level 37.


Wednesday

Yuki-Onna (50 ice/cold corruptor) did a speed ITF; I again saw AVs running away from us a lot (team leader thought it was because we had no tank or brute on the team to taunt, I think maybe it's true) and this actually caused Romulus in mission 4 to run away from his Nictus and so he died without a rez, forcing us to kill off the Nictus AVs directly. Still finished in 25m 9s. Then followed a speed LGTF in 24m 5s.

I bought a few recipes for Yuki-Onna; got a Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control (RCHG/END) from the Black Market for 18M infamy; this recipe is always high priced, but I wanted it in order to complete a set of 6 Gaussian for +2.5% DEF to all positions. I also spent 240 reward merits for a Blessing of the Zephyr (KB protect) which gave me more ranged DEF. Yuki-Onna now has 43.67% range DEF when running all her toggles. Haven't quite made it to the 45% soft cap (need one more set of BotZ), but getting closer.

Solo'd Millie Volt (40 elec/elec brute) through The Galactic Protectorate - 04, an AE story about helping the human resistance (of another dimension) battle alien invaders. This seemed a good installment but could've used a little more content, and as "part 4" was starting to feel a little formulaic; I ended up giving it 4 stars.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) continued soloing a flashback of Maria Jenkins' arc, beating Nightstar as an EB. This gave her the Dimensional Warder badge; I ended up quitting the flashback since that's all I really wanted. Did some running around clicking plaques to get the Scholastic badge and Portal Jockey accolade. Then I did a flashback of the Spelunker mission (for 1 merit in 6m 57s) and clicked plaques for the Pupil badge, getting the Atlas Medallion accolade.

I joined an Eden trial with Star Amethyst; our team was 3 blasters, 1 tanker, 1 defender (me as dark/ice), 2 controllers (a kin and a rad), 1 scrapper. We had some confusion over what to do with the Quarry monsters (whether to kill them or drop them in a hole). We ended up killing them, then beat up some walls and collected ambrosia for awhile. Our scrapper never quite understood what ambrosia was for or why he needed it; he ended up getting splattered by the Crystal Titan as a result, but the rest of us were able to take the Crystal Titan down, completing the trial in 1h 1m for 7 merits and the Liberator badge.

While battling DE AVs and GMs I ended up wielding my evil moderator powers on LB, first warning people for talking about urine, then silencing someone briefly, before unsilencing him again. That seemed to stop that particular conversation and I even got a

[Tell] @Somebody: I totally deserved that. <3.

from the person I silenced, but it did spur some debate on why LB has moderators and whether they should actually be moderating stuff. Some people were for unrestricted speech while others seemed to prefer moderation. Since I sort of spurred this discussion with my action, I felt like I should say something. This is what I said:

[LB]PW: for my part, I got given this tin star and asked to help keep this channel nice, and it may ultimately be tilting at windmills, but I'm gonna try to do it

....

[LB]PW: I think it's a fair concern <name omitted>, but some of the nasty talk drives nicer people away from the channel, which is hurtful for the community .... so some moderation is helpful for keeping the community alive, IMHO


I ended up joining <name omitted>'s RSF after that. It looked like the team could use a kin, so I played Primadonna (50 sonic/kin corruptor) who had been on the shelf for a couple months while I worked on hero-side kins. The team was: shield brute, 5 corruptors (son, kin, pain, dark, rad), widow, bane. We did fine up to the last mission, where our first attempt at the Freedom Phalanx was a total wipe without defeating any heroes; I think this was because our lone brute unluckily died from the alpha strike and the rest of us squishies couldn't take the aggro of the angry Phalanxers. Our second attempt we all popped a bunch of oranges to take the edge off any lucky damage spikes; this went a lot better and we beat all the heroes up on that try. Finished in 1hr 5m and got a Nucleolus SHO.

Nickname that boss!

I really like the name Tzompantli for the custom Skulls boss in the final mission, as it's a cool word with appropriate meaning for a Skulls leader.

However, I'm convinced that gang members would never call anyone that (it's just too long and unpronounceable) so she needs a nickname. I currently have the other Skulls calling her "Panty" for short, but am somewhat aware that sounds silly. I've rationalized that the silly nickname is a good contrast with the very morbid meaning of the full name, but have gotten enough mixed feedback on the nickname that I'm considering changing it.

Consequently, I'll put it up for a vote! Using the original nickname and all the ones suggested by Stratonexus:

VOTE FOR ONE OF:
1. Panty
2. Pants
3. Pantly
4. Zomp
5. Zompa
6. TZ (TeeZee)
7. Tiz
8. Tizzie
9. Pan
10. Panny
11+. <write in your own!>


I'll set a deadline of midnight EST on Sunday 2/21. Each poster can vote once for one name by posting in this thread.

Since I've already named her Panty, I'll count myself as one vote for #1. Additionally, any poster who has posted above an answer of NO to "Is the Big Bad's nickname too stupid?" but doesn't cast a vote will add one vote for #1, while anyone who answered YES to that question but doesn't cast a vote will subtract one vote for #1. Even if you've previously answered this question, however, you can cast a vote for a different name, which will then override your previous answer.

This may stack things slightly towards answer #1, but since that's also the least effort for me, I'm okay with that.

After the deadline I'll count up the votes (if any) and use whichever name gets the most votes (breaking ties by author fiat as needed, and reserving the right to reject any really ludicrous write-ins).